


to the resident ghost

by clearlykero



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, oikawa is a ghost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 08:29:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14468826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clearlykero/pseuds/clearlykero
Summary: “Mom,” Iwaizumi says over dinner, “did you have an invisible friend when you were a kid?”or, Oikawa is a ghost, and Iwaizumi is being haunted.





	to the resident ghost

**Author's Note:**

> character death only insofar as oikawa is already dead. for a SASO prompt left by kiyala:
> 
> Package: incense, left on the windowsill   
> From: Iwaizumi Hajime  
> To: the resident ghost  
> Note: I know I'm not hearing things.

The voice has been getting louder.   
  
Not that it wasn’t excessively loud already, just— more present. Like it’s right next to Iwaizumi, laughing into his ear. After all this time, Iwaizumi has gotten used to the random comments that happen whenever he comes home, but it’s always been the same vague, impersonal voice from nowhere specific. Never this tangible, and never this  _constant_ ; it even follows him to the bathroom, only getting quiet after he strips off his clothes.  
  
The voice is not something he’s talked about to anyone, having been private about it for no reason that he can pinpoint. There was never any harm in it, after all; it was just a secret he kept for himself, a companion (friend?) to come home to. Over the years he’s come to the conclusion that it’s an invisible friend his childhood self made for company who has just... stuck. Since the voice is basically harmless, he’s let it go on until now.  
  
But ever since Iwaizumi started high school, the voice had just gotten clearer and clearer. It has  _personality_. It talks about likes (milk bread), and dislikes (an extensive list), and even things that Iwaizumi knows nothing about. After the first time he watched a video in his room of a rival team for research, it had started talking about volleyball. Iwaizumi has a lot of talents, but he doesn’t think inventing an entire person is something he’s capable of. Particularly one that can’t seem to shut up.   
  
Lately, Iwaizumi isn’t so sure about his conclusion any more.  
  
 _Hearing things in your head_ , Iwaizumi types into the Google search bar one day, when he is tired from practice and the voice has been more irritating than usual. It’s the first time in the two years since the voice had started being conversational that he’s looked it up.  
  
“Hajime, dinner,” his mother calls from downstairs, before he can open any of the results. He looks at one of the links (‘Why The Voice in your Head is REAL!’), sighs, and closes the tab.   
  
 _Don’t be mean, I’m not a thing_ , says the voice sulkily.  _I’m a person!_  
  
“You’re right.” Iwaizumi manages to say, after a pause. The voice has never actually said it’s a person before. Not directly, at least. He gets up, stretches, goes to the door. “My imagination would never be this big of a pain in the ass.”  
  
 _Hey!_  
  
“Mom,” he says over dinner, “did you have an invisible friend when you were a kid?” He steadfastly ignores the voice’s protests.  
  
“Oh, I don’t know, I don’t think I did,” his mother replies absently, eyes on the television. Iwaizumi pauses in reaching for another piece of chicken, and when it becomes clear she isn’t going to expand upon her answer he slowly continues eating. He’s thinking about a possibility he never really let himself think about before, and it keeps him up the rest of the night.  
  
At morning practice, he’s doing warm-ups next to Matsukawa, and it just comes out: “Do you ever think you’re hearing things?”   
  
Matsukawa looks at him with raised eyebrows. Iwaizumi immediately regrets it.   
  
“Nevermind,” he says, as casually as he can, “just a random thought.” They go on with practice like Iwaizumi never said anything, and he’s grateful for his teammate’s stoicism.  
  
On the way back from school, he stops by the temple and buys a bundle of incense.  
  
It’s strangely quiet when Iwaizumi steps into the house— after months of the voice being ever-present beside him, having silence is somewhat unnerving. He goes to his room, sits at his desk, waits. Still, the voice says nothing.  
  
“Okay,” he says, taken aback. He tears a page out of his exercise book instead.  
  
 _I know I’m not hearing things_ , he writes.  
  
He puts it and the incense on the windowsill, lights the incense, and goes to sleep early.  
  
The next day, there’s someone standing at the foot of his bed.  
  
“Who,” says Iwaizumi, after his heart has stopped threatening to jump out of his chest. He notices the dim outline of his desk through the person. “What?”  
  
“Hi!” the person says, and it’s  _the voice_. “I’m finally here!”  
  
“You’ve always been here,” he points out, faintly. The voice is taller than he’d imagined. Iwaizumi wonders if he can touch it. Him. Maybe he’ll just feel like a regular person— but maybe he’ll feel like nothing at all. It’s tempting to just reach his hand out and try, but he doesn’t really want to know the answer.  
  
“ _Yes_ , but now I’m  _here_.” He flops down on Iwaizumi’s bed without waiting for an invitation (not that he’s a stranger, but still).   
  
There’s no impression on the sheets. There’s nothing to prove this is not a figment of his imagination other than his own eyes, ears, and the inexplicable certainty like iron in his gut. Iwaizumi blinks, realises he’s been staring for too long because now the voice is giving him an odd look.  
  
“Is this weird for you?”  
  
“I— ”  
  
“Because this is  _so_  weird for me,” the voice continues cheerily, over whatever Iwaizumi had been trying to say. “I could never see you properly before, your hair is way worse than I thought it was!”  
  
“Shut up,” he says automatically. Then, “Are you de— a ghost?”  
  
The voice notices his change in wording and smiles wryly, twisting a strand of hair in his finger. His hair is flippy and idol-like and Iwaizumi hates it already.  
  
“I... guess?” It comes out slowly. “I mean, I’m not a vengeful spirit or anything, if that’s what you’re asking.”  
  
“Do you,” Iwaizumi swallows, “do you have a name?”  
  
“Oikawa!” says the voice immediately. “Oikawa Tooru. I don’t remember how I died, you know, but I definitely remember that. And lots of cute girls. I love girls.”  
  
“And volleyball?” asks Iwaizumi, ignoring the last bit.  
  
The voice’s— Oikawa’s— shoulders hunch. “... And volleyball.”  
  
“Okay, well.” Iwaizumi rubs his eyes, suddenly exhausted. He hasn’t even gotten out of bed yet. “I need to go to school, don’t mess up my room while I’m gone.”  
  
“I wouldn’t!” gasps Oikawa in mock umbrage, but Iwaizumi can tell that he means  _I can’t_ , and he feels a little bit guilty.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
When Iwaizumi moves to Tokyo two years later, Oikawa follows.  
  
“I came!” Oikawa announces behind him, as Iwaizumi shuts the door after thanking the movers. Iwaizumi can hear the sparkles in his voice.  
  
“How.” He doesn’t even have the energy to make it a question. He feels like if he turns around Oikawa might disappear, so he doesn’t, just rests his forehead against the door.   
  
“You,” a beat, “you just need so much help with your life, I couldn’t possibly leave you alone?”  
  
Iwaizumi has had a very,  _very_  long day. He had left Miyagi knowing that Oikawa was tied to his family house,  _knowing_  that chasing his ambitions meant giving up someone whom he had become irrevocably attached to. He’d been prepared. He’d even cried on the bullet train coming here, for fuck’s sake, not that he’ll ever admit to it.  
  
He turns around, and Oikawa is standing close to him, expression bright with an edge of terrified.  
  
“Answer the question.”  
  
“I don’t know— ” and Iwaizumi is done with this, done with the situation, done with his own angry frustration, and his hand instinctively comes up to grab Oikawa, and—   
  
He—   
  
There’s skin under his palm. Just for a split second, so quick he instantly doubts it, but when he looks at Oikawa’s face he knows.  
  
“What is this?” Quietly.  
  
“I think.” Oikawa licks his lips. Iwaizumi tracks the motion. There are things that neither of them have brought up, things that have always been an impossibility. But hope is dangerous, and Iwaizumi carefully doesn’t think about any of it.  
  
“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says helplessly. He wants to reach out again, but he doesn’t. “I think— you’re just. Special, you know?”  
  
Iwaizumi processes this, and then he just sits down where he is, back against the door. Oikawa comes hesitantly to sit beside him.  
  
“I guess I’m stuck with you, Kusokawa,” he sighs, pretending his voice doesn’t shake and Oikawa’s answering laugh isn’t thick with emotion.  
  
“Like glue.”  
  
They sit like that, not saying anything at all, until Iwaizumi falls asleep, shoulder to shoulder, almost touching but not quite.


End file.
